Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief Chandrababu Naidu is moving heaven and earth in his desperation to win the 2024 Assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh. He is copying every method adopted by his bitter opponent YS Jagan even after ridiculing the latter for the same. The most recent instance came when the veteran leader performed Raja Shyamala Yagam at his Undavalli residence. Since YS Jagan went through this vedic ritual before ascending to power in 2019, Naidu emulated the same and invoked gods for some divine help.

There are still a good two months before we know if the gods have really answered his prayers and bestowed him with power. But, before that, the aging leader appears to be in need of some immediate psychiatric help to save himself and his party from self-humiliation in public.

Many would see Chandrababu Naidu as synonymous with backstabbing and betrayals. His ‘politically-correct’ rhetoric also earned him the ignominious nickname of a ‘habitual liar’. As if this is not enough, he is increasingly becoming infamous of late for his frequent ‘Freudian slips’ in his public speeches: He intends to hurl accusations or indulge in personality attacks on his opponents but woefully ends up attributing the same qualities to himself or his side.
There are dime a dozen examples of such ‘foot-in-mouth’ comments from the TDP chief which made him and his party a butt of ridicule. Thanks to social media, his legendary ‘goof-ups’ have even become a trollers’ delight..! The latest of such moments came during the TDP-Janasena ‘Jenda’ meeting in Tadepalligudem on Wednesday. Chandrababu Naidu embarrassed everyone except himself when he flippantly claimed that the TDP-Janasena combine is a ‘cheating time’ and the YSRCP a ‘winning team’. Without realising his blunder, he even asked the stunned leaders and the crowd to endorse if what he said was right (avunaa, kaadaa?).

Needless to say that the glaring slip-up left everyone including Pawan Kalyan red-faced and made them squirm uncomfortably in their seats. As said before, this is the not the first time Chandrababu Naidu left nowhere to hide for his TDP men with his self-mortifying barbs. On more than one occasion during his recent public meetings, Chandrababu Naidu unabashedly said that ‘cycle (the poll symbol of the TDP) povaali.., fan (YSRCP’s poll symbol) raavali’ (Cycle should vanish from the public memory and it should be replaced with fan).

One is not sure if Chandrababu Naidu was able to inculcate his leadership qualities to his son Nara Lokesh. But people will be compelled to believe that he certainly passed on his ‘Freudian slips’ to his son, who is still struggling for a foothold in politics. Several years ago, Lokesh invited derisive jeers from all and sundry when he claimed in a public rally that the TDP was the only party with immense greed for money and with a casteist and communal mindset. This, added with many more later, earned Lokesh the sobriquet of ‘Pappu’, a colloquial demeaning equivalent for a ‘dud’.

To be fair to the father-son duo, no politician or celebrity is an exception to fumbling with their statements in public speaking. Ironically, the frequency of their goof-ups makes these two a ‘class apart’ from the rest.

Leaders of TDP’s arch-rival YSRCP always pounces on any such opportunities that either Chandrababu or Lokesh present to them on a platter. Already, there is a narrative peddled in the public domain against Chandrababu Naidu which claims that the veteran leader suffers from delusionary disorder and alzheimer’s disease. This may or may not be a true clinical condition as it can only be proven in a thorough psychiatric assessment. But whenever Chandrababu Naidu comes up with such jaw-dropping ‘Freudian slips’, it gives enough cannon fodder to his opponents to raise doubts about his mental fitness.

They also contemptuously call this as a reflection of the TDP chief’s innate personality trait. They feel the TDP chief proposes to hurl false accusations at his opponents, especially YS Jagan. But because his conscience knows that they are best suited for him, he ends up attributing them to himself or his own camp.